Supporting ones speech with signs from a sign language holds great potential for hard of hearing people and their environment. This talk argues that this will hold great potential for deaf communities, as it massively increases the number of people with some (lexical) knowledge of the sign language, with many hearing adults moving on acquiring sign language proper.
Sign languages are minority languages in every country. They are used by a deaf community which (including also the deaf and hearing late learners) comprises at most one percent of the population. Up to ten percent of the people in many if not all countries are hard of hearing, however. These hard-of-hearing speakers rarely see the sign language as a viable complementary way of communicating. With the growing recognition of the important role of gestures in spoken communication, the leap towards a signed communication suddenly becomes much smaller. If hard of hearing people and their close contacts (amounting to an estimated 30-50% of a country's population!) would further enrich their speech with signs, effectively using a form of sign-supported speech, the impact of their hearing loss on their lives might become much smaller. Moreover, for deaf people, there would then be a tenfold increase (if not much more) in the number of people with whom they can use a form of signing. This is not the sign language proper, but it does amount to learning large parts of the vocabulary of a sign language, a major leap from the current knowledge of and skills in visual communication by hearing people. The impact on the potential of deaf people in society will be substantial.
